Americans get gold at low-key ceremony

Published: Friday, September 22, 2000

JOHN RICEAssociated Press Writer

SYDNEY, Australia {AP} The first American gold medal in weightlifting in 40 years arrived with little fanfare. There was no "Star-Spangled Banner," no cheering throng not even the winning athlete herself.

As a recording of a baroque trumpet concerto played over loudspeakers in place of the American anthem, IOC Vice President Dick Pound handed a gold medal to U.S. delegation chief Sandy Baldwin, who stood in for Tara Nott in a ceremony Friday at the Olympic athletes' village.

Nott took the gold when the International Olympic Committee decided earlier in the day to strip Bulgaria's Izabela Drangava of the medal because of a positive drug test following Sunday's competition in the 105-pound women's weightlifting catatory.

Nott chose to skip the ceremony so she could cheer on teammate Cheryl Haworth in the 165-pound-plus competition. Haworth won a bronze medal.

"She's her teammate, her best friend and she was in the middle of competition and she said, 'I just have to be with her.' That's what teammates are for," Baldwin said.

It was the second ceremony this week at the little open-air theater the possible start of a tradition of awarding medals stripped from drug violators in ceremonies at the athlete's village.

In the past, there apparently was little fanfare when medals from disqualified athletes were handed on to the eventual victors.

"I think it's very important," Pound told reporters. "I think it's time that we publicly recognize the athletes who have been cheated and to give them the honor in front of their peers here at the village."

He said such ceremonies would continue.

"If we have to do it every day, if we find somebody who has tested positive and who has cheated the results of the Olympic Games, yes, we'll do it," he said.

Most of the Americans were at the weightlifting competition, so a few dozen supporters of the Indonesian silver and bronze medalists dominated the crowd.

Pound slipped the silver medal around the neck of Raema Lisa Rumbewas and gave the bronze to Sri Indriyani shortly after the flags of the United States and Indonesia were hastily raised on small flagpoles.

He then gave the bronze medal in the 137-pound class to Gennady Oleshchuk of Belarus.

"I am very happy because it was the right thing to do, to find the truth about the medal," Rumbewas said through a translator.